Leo Tolstoy on time and eternity in human life (on the materials of the writer’s later diaries)

Abstract

The author explores the notions of time and eternity as characteristics of human existence in the religious doctrine of L.N. Tolstoy. Tolstoy, like Plato, sharply contrasts the material existence of a person with her true life associated with transferring the center of personal­ity into the sphere of the spiritual being, that is God for Tolstoy. The article shows that the views of Tolstoy are in fact very far from Platonism and can be compared with the philosophical views of Henri Bergson. Firstly, Tolstoy asserts that the material world and the spiritual being are connected through man, and the material world is constantly moving towards greater perfection and union with God through man. Secondly, the spiri­tual being itself (i.e. God) is ascribed the characteristic of eternity and of temporal dy­namics at the same time. Trying to describe the difference in the temporal characteristic of the spiritual being from the ordinary earthly time, Tolstoy asserts that the former has no separation between past, present and future; all events that are divided in time in the earthly world, are in unity in the spiritual being. Therefore, the “time” that characterizes the spiritual being can be called “the eternal present”. Being related to the material as well as the spiritual being, a human is included in the usual time of the earthly world, which divides her existence, as well as in the “eternal present” of the spiritual being. The transition from the former to the latter is accomplished by memory (in an act of rec­ollection), which becomes the main metaphysical faculty of a person in the conception of L. Tolstoy.